A place in history

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Any event that combines 24 horses, 18,000 prawns, 2000 wheelie
bins and $4.5 million in prize money is bound to attract a certain
amount of attention.

But there is more to the enduring and ever expanding appeal of
the Melbourne Cup than conspicuous crustacea. There is tradition of
course. This is a race that has been run since 1861, the year
Archer famously walked better than 800 kilometres from Nowra to
beat a field of 17 and win not a cup, but £170 and a
hand-beaten gold watch.

There is tradition, and the more recent  and sometimes
controversial  novelty of growing international reputation
and allure. These days the fancied imports eyeing what has become
one of the worlds feature races arrive by air and in numbers.
There were 20 internationals among the 38 horses still in the hunt
before the field was narrowed at Saturdays final
declarations, the moment when the last 24 standing paid a final
instalment of $22,275 and set themselves for a start on the first
Tuesday in November.

The Cup has kicked on. The field might look like a United
Nations General Assembly suddenly overwhelmed by arabs and New
Zealanders, but the race remains a uniquely, powerfully Australian
moment. That mid-afternoon hiatus when the country unities in
pensive inactivity  all work, conversation and business set
aside  to hang on three minutes of a race call.

Its corny, cliched, slightly bizarre, but true: the race
stops the nation. Premier Steve Bracks recalls that curious sense
of simultaneous suspension and social connection that settles upon
every corner of the country at race time. We would always
have a picnic with family and friends and tune in to the radio when
the Melbourne Cup began. It was the one point in your life when you
knew that if you looked around, you would see everyone else doing
exactly the same thing.

A view of the track is atradeable commodity at Flemington, something money can buy.

It will be the same at 3.10 this afternoon, when the flashing
light spins above the starting barrier at Flemington, and the
crescendo that follows the running of the Melbourne Cup spills from
speakers large and small across the country  a country in
which almost every one has a favourite and some kind of stake in
the outcome.

Its bigger than the lot of us put together says
H.G.Nelson, it's a race that plays a part in defining our very
essence.

"The Melbourne Cup is Australia, as far as I'm concerned," he
says. "It's better than Easter. It's better than the Royal Show.
It's better than Moomba. Quite a bit better than Moomba,
actually.

Lashed's hooves echo through the emptiness under Flemington racecourse yesterday. It will be a different story today as the roar of thousands herald the start of the Melbourne Cup.Photo:Vince Caligiuri

"Seeing fit Australians wading through the betting ring with
just 10 hard-earned dollars in hand to back a fancy - that's
Australia.

"It's something America will never understand, no matter how
many of our horses they murder."

But increasingly the allure of our cup is something that is
becoming understood in other far-flung quarters.

According to Eddie Lim, Australian chief of Emirates Airline, a
business that liked the sound of the Melbourne Cup so much it
bought the name: "It is the race that stops not only this nation,
but the race that stops many nations."

No nation more so than the United Arab Emirates, and nowhere in
that oasis of inquisitive oil money more than in the Dubai
headquarters of Godolphin, a thoroughbred training operation with
more than 200 horses in work, one that shipped three to Melbourne
last month for its seventh cup campaign.

It's a campaign propelled by the determined desire of the head
trainer, Saeed bin Suroor, who swore, after the inglorious defeat
last year of the lamed Mamool: "If it was easy to win, it wouldn't
be worth winning. I hope to win the Melbourne Cup before I
die."

Bin Suroor is not an old man. Godolphin will keep coming,
although this year, according to the stable's media manager, Alan
Byrne, it may be with modified expectations.

"In this Olympic year we're invoking the spirit of Baron de
Coubertin," he said. "We're here to take part, not to win. If we
did it would be something of a surprise."

This may come as news to Mamool and Razkalla, the stable's
remaining chances in this afternoon's race. "The fact that it's
elusive only makes it the more compelling. Whether we'd keep coming
back after we finally succeed, who knows? "We've always said we'd
deal with that particular problem when it arose. Sadly it hasn't
yet."

The participation of the likes of Godolphin has been "a great
boon" to the race, according to the chief handicapper for the
Victorian Racing Club, Jim Bowler, a man who, after 25 Novembers,
has set the weights for his last Melbourne Cup, weights that the
local doyen J.B. Cummings has hinted might show a soft spot for the
foreign runners.

Bowler will have none of that, but has watched the rise in
foreign entries with interest. "I'm sure that when bin Suroor goes
back to Dubai each year he learns just a little bit more about the
type of horse required to win a Melbourne Cup," he says. "I've seen
all shapes and sizes win it. You can't pick 'em."

Which, in no small part, is a result of the handicapper's art, a
determined, calculated pursuit of "the median line".

As he puts it: "What we try and do is make it as hard as
possible for you to pick a winner in the race. We aim to level the
field, not elevate an individual."

Picking a winner is, however, something that will occupy the
expected 120,000 members of an enthusiastic, frocked-up and
increasingly disoriented public likely to fill Flemington for
today's racing.

Some may even catch a glimpse of the runners, though probably
not from the crush of nuns, frogmen, sheiks and boxer-short tuxedos
that will choke the rose-bordered public lawns.

From there you will be lucky to catch the top of a bobbing
silk-wrapped jockey's cap as it flies past 16 hands high, let alone
the unfolding drama of the full 3200 metres.

A view of the track is a tradeable commodity at Flemington,
something money can buy.

One of the better vantage points will be chief steward Des
Gleeson's perch in the clock tower, one of six stewards' eyries
from which a keen adjudicating eye will be kept on every metre of
the running.

The eagle Gleeson gaze will be shaded by a trademark brim, a hat
style now marketed as The Gleeson, and one quite popular on course.
"I see quite a few budding stewards out there," he says, though
this year he will stick with last year's model. "I normally get a
new one each spring, but I bought a very good hat a year or so ago
at Henry Bucks, and it's worn well."

If you're not a steward you will get a better than average
chance of catching the action on the giant screens that tower above
the birdcage car park.

Inside the track's fast-multiplying fleet of nigh on 300
corporate marquees? No problem, every detail in wide-screen plasma
fed by more than 33 generators and 36 kilometres of cables.

And perhaps the best view of all? From the members' Atrium
restaurant, where restaurant supervisor Trish Andrew will
co-ordinate a floor staff of 75, and another 20 in the kitchens to
feed 910 diners. Her day will be a hectic 13 hours old by the time
she calls it quits at 8.30. There will be no time for idle
track-watching, though she will have placed a bet or two
yesterday.

Ms Andrew also has a professional secret, something that might
be of interest to the hordes of female racegoers who, as evening
gathers, will be cursing their bloodied corns and broken heels as
they stagger to train or car: "I have a little trick. I have three
changes of shoes through the day, and I have never have a problem.
That's the secret, change your shoes."

Advice that in many quarters of the track is interpreted as
"take them off", for a slow decline in sartorial standard is a
feature of any cup day, from total collapse by the Princess Di
rosebed, to an impromptu nutrient-rich irrigation of a neighboring
car space.

One of Melbourne's most-invited marquee ornaments, Molly
Meldrum, attempts to maintain a degree of sobriety most cup days,
purely to enjoy a more clinically detached observation of this
routine all-encompassing deterioration.

"Normally, I'm having a vodka and tonic, you know, but at the
races I sip a beer and switch to soda. I just love to watch the
biddies, you know, the Toorak dears all dolled up. Then slowly but
surely the lipsticks smears, then the mascara runs and the heels
break. It's like the rising and the setting of the sun, a wonderful
thing to watch. Absolutely hilarious."

Catering supremo Peter Rowland is also watching. This will be
his 43rd Melbourne Cup, a day he says that provides "a magic
opportunity to see how many good-looking women there are in
Melbourne."

And to treat racegoers to an ever-expanding and refining menu.
"The changes have been dramatic," he says. "We've seen it change,
and we've helped it change, and it hasn't finished yet."

A wearying day lies ahead for Rowland and his trusty golf buggy.
"I'll just ponce around. Everyone thinks I'm working. I'm just
looking at the girls."

So, eat, drink, perv and be merry. At the end of the day
Cleanevent venue manager Paul Desmond and his team of 380 will be
there to pick up the pieces.

"It's hard work for us," he says, "but the excitement that runs
through the place is incredible." Excitement that each year leaves
its flimsy trail of physical evidence.

"I always get amazed by the amount of underwear we find," says
Desmond, who will supervise the collection of more than 80 tonnes
of garbage from the course, as staff primp it for Thursday's
ladies' day.

That turnaround places a strain on all the facilities, but
nowhere more so than within the rails of the track itself. This is
the domain of VRC track and grounds manager Terry Watson, who rated
today's going, penetrometer in hand, at 5.45 this morning, and will
give the long oval of turf a final walk between 8 and 9am.

Between cup and Oaks, he may even consider a quick mow to
maintain the five-inch (the sport of kings is nothing if not
imperial) sward. Mowing will take most of the day. "The course is
30 acres of grass, you know. It's a big paddock, a lot of grass to
cut down."

But when all is said and done, when 425,000 bottles of beer,
60,000 bread rolls, 5000 pieces of sushi, 8500 chicken breasts,
80,000 pre-mixed spirits, 30,000 bottle of wine and 130 portable
toilets do their worst, the race is the thing.

Remember, as you press to the rails, or stagger upright in some
far-flung spread of luxurious canvas, the most important thing is
just to stay calm. Take it from no less an authority than Bart
Cummings: "Don't change the routine, keep everything the same. Keep
cool and calm, that's the secret."

And don't drive home - 2450 drivers were breath-tested last
year, and as you leave the track this afternoon there will be three
booze buses waiting, just part of a supervising presence that this
year will include 600 private security operators and 400
police.

Even with all that back-up, VRC racecourse detective Peter
McMillan remains apprehensive. "It's a full moon, as well, which
can't be good," he points out.